


Flamingoes and Mustard

by catty_the_spy



Series: #verse [7]
Category: Stargate: Universe
Genre: Anxiety, Discussion Animal Feces, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catty_the_spy/pseuds/catty_the_spy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They need a moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flamingoes and Mustard

**Author's Note:**

> for the cotton-candy bingo prompt “Planets”. A bit more… lighthearted than the last installment.

  
The Recreation and Morale committee hosted a party on the observation deck. To go with the music and a great deal of alcohol, there was a poetry reading and a scene from Macbeth.

Young decided not to indulge in the alcohol. The poem was nice.

Camille joined him on his out of the way bench, cup in hand. “It’s tea,” she said, offering it to him. He shook his head.

“I hope you didn’t mind me approving the Recreation Committee.”

“Why would I?” Young asked. “They needed something, and it’s not like I was in a position to say yes or no.”

Camille’s eyebrows twitched; Young couldn’t quite read her expression.

She sipped her tea. “Rush couldn’t make it?”

“You expected him to?”

“Not really,” she admitted, “but I thought you might have talked him into it.” She looked at him sidelong. “You and Rush are spending a lot of time together these days.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Camille smiled. “Congratulations.” She wrapped her hands around her cup and rested her elbows on her knees. “You can’t always see it, but he’s happier. You both are.”

Young didn’t know what to say. Camille left it at that, watching Hernandez drunkenly recite a poem about life blooming from barren nothingness. Young was pretty sure it was about hydroponics.

“I hate poetry,” another of the crew’s amateur poets said. “Fucking birds that aren’t really birds, rhymes and fucking plum thieves. Nonsense words, fucking donkeys with fucking gourds as a fucking metaphor. Rhythm and meter and deeper fucking meanings. I hate poetry.”

There was a mix of jeers and applause. Camille got up and came back with another cup.

“This isn’t tea,” she said, holding it out.

Young looked at the next poet stepping up, complete with low dramatic backing music. He took the cup.

 

Rush was in one of his usual haunts, a hallway whose walls were covered with numbers.

“What now?” he growled when Young joined him.

Young set down the peace offering he’d brought. “Making any progress?”

Rush didn’t even glance at the food. “I’d be making more of it if certain parties didn’t revel in tormenting me.”

He took the tea, though.

“You’ve been invited to the party, then.”

“Frequently and at length.”

“You missed an impressive ode to salt,” Young said, not bothering to hide his grin.

“And a lot of drunken dancing, I imagine. Eli seemed to think liquor would convince me.”

“They want to see you relax,” Young said. He took one of the potato slices he’d brought for Rush. How was Becker cooking these? The purple potatoes tasted much better this way.

“The same is true of you. Why are you here?”

Young pointed at the plate and cup he’d brought. “What does it look like? I’m keeping you company.”

Rush huffed. Young ate another potato slice, scanning walls with passive interest.

There wasn’t much in this part of the ship – some crew quarters, a few empty storage rooms. One room was full of dead consoles and a dully glowing piece of machinery that turned portions of itself on and off in an endless cycle. Most of the doors wouldn’t open for them regardless of what they did. The only people who came down here were Rush and various members of the science team.

He looked over at Rush.

Rush was staring off into space, holding a root vegetable like a cigarette. Young shook his head, picking up another potato slice. Next time, he’d bring his laptop.

 

Their next drop out left them with six planets in range. It was a long one.

Destiny, it seemed, had provided them with a list.

“The ship wants to be repaired.” Rush pointed at the midair display. “Now that we’re activated certain systems – now that it knows we’re able to use them – it’s giving us the means to repair more. These were meant to work together,” Rush said, indicating hydroponics, waste management, and their water supply. “As we’ve accessed all three, it’s giving us the means to use them properly.”

With help from Camille, Young divided the crew into seven shifts. Hopefully this way everyone would get an equal amount of time on each planet. Time planet-side was a valuable commodity, and they needed the vitamin D.

One of the planets was relatively cold. The crew members there made fires in gas cans to huddle around in between completing tasks. They rarely stayed into the night, but when they did, they had to contend with sleep and pitch blackness only a few feet from their fires.

The second was warmer, but far wetter. Deep pools, frequent rains. There was an abundance of plant life that they took advantage of, and beneath the soil were large stones made of a mineral Destiny desired.

During the night, tiny organisms lining the pools glowed green and purple. These too, they gathered, in smaller numbers – the organisms survived off pollutants that flowed from the land to the water, leaving the water safe to drink; they might work for some of the filters connected to the water system.

The other planets were much of the same – thick forests that had sprouted up around stargates placed there ages ago, caves and bizarre rock formations that housed crystals or minerals Destiny wanted.

One gate was on the edge of a cliff, staring down into an empty seabed. Skeletons of something like coral dotted the landscape. Whatever had happened, grass was starting to sprout up, and tiny plants with ever tinier flowers.

Young eyed them while he waited for his team to spread out. Aside from the normal gear, they had a sled, several crates, a basket, and several animal-hide packs the crew had been dying to put to good use.

They had weeks to explore this place, to explore all of these planets. If they had any luck at all, these weeks would be peaceful.

 

Young cut cleanly through the dark water, not sure how far he’d gone. His heart was pounding impossibly fast, dangerously fast even.

He waited for his lungs to burn, but the feeling never came. How long could he stay down here before drowning became a real possibility? He was already alone in the deep pool, far away from any members of the crew. The pool seemed to go on forever. It might not be possible for him to reach the bottom. It was so deep, and so cool.

He turned abruptly, aiming for the surface, for the light that was too far to see.

It took a while for his heart to slow when he reached the surface. He took deep breaths, but they’re leisurely ones despite himself. It wasn’t just holding his breath, what he was going. It was something else.

He swam to his clothes.

A couple of civilians and Barnes were trying to whistle with blades of grass, taking advantage of the break in their work. They’d obviously been swimming; Barnes was only half-dressed, her shirt and someone’s borrowed shorts clinging to her wet skin. The rest of her clothes had been folded and set on a rock.

“They’re doing a fry closer to the gate,” she said while he brushed his wet hair out of his eyes. “Tubers and these…squirrel things.”

One of the civilians passed Young a threadbare towel.

“How much time?” he asked, after thanking them.

“Three hours,” Barnes said. “Destiny sent the empties back a few minutes ago. We’ll be ready to go back to work after everyone’s eaten.”

Young nodded. He put on everything but his jacket and his boots and headed towards the gate.

“-snakeskin is pretty sturdy,” James was saying to Dr. Gardner from other side of a small fire. “You might want something a bit tougher.”

“I guess. I just don’t want to end up using animal bladders again, you know? They’re such…organs that used to hold urine.”

“People eat pig intestines,” Young offered, making Gardner jump. “Next to that, bladders seem awfully pleasant. How’s everything going lieutenant?”

“Fine sir. Break will be over in a little while. We have our containers back; Lt. Johansen wants you to remember to take frequent breaks, and to remind everyone to use the sun block she sed.”

The crew members on this shift were spread out in small groups. There were a few halfhearted attempts at fishing. When Chloe offered him a kabob, he half expected to see scars crisscrossing her face.

“The wood makes everything taste like mint,” she warned as he took a bite. “It might taste strange.”

James shrugged. “I’d like it better if we could put salt on them, but Becker’s been hoarding it.”

“Salt and mint?”

He left them to it, drifting back towards the water. At the moment the sky was clear, but he could see clouds in the distance. It wouldn’t be long before it rained.

The food was nice. Minty, like Chloe said, but pleasant all the same.

He watched the sky.

 

 

For the most part, he and Rush had separate shifts. This one they shared, together on a planet with tall hollow spears of rock. Break periods meant little to Rush, so while Young and everyone else took a moment to eat and relax, Rush worked on a series of little projects he’d brought along with him. Charcoal had stained Rush’s cuticles.

Birds had built nests in the rocks here. One took to the air with a piercing shriek. Its fellows came pouring out of the spears behind it, forming strict lines as they headed east. The short time they’d been here had allowed the crew to learn that these birds flew in very tight formations, more complex than any flock on earth. Very intelligent, these birds. The crew kept an eye on them.

The item in Rush’s hands sparked.

“What are you _doing_?”

Rush didn’t answer, scowling at the object in his hands. It sparked again, something inside it whirring to life before falling quiet again. A bird shrieked – a lone sentinel spiraled above them, watching the humans with equal wariness.

Rush twisted a wire, but the item didn’t spark again. He shined a penlight into the small end; Young wasn’t sure he wanted to know where Rush had gotten a penlight.

“It needs to be hooked up to a power source.” Rush said. Young wasn’t sure who he was talking to. “If we give it an opportunity to charge…”

“The workshop has a few cables,” Young said, assuming a charging plate wouldn’t be adequate. “All you need to do is find the one that fits.”

Rush made a soft irritated noise. Young wasn’t sure whether it was directed at him or at portable Ancient machines that had dead batteries.

“Is it important?”

Rush shoved the penlight at him. “This will help up detect mineral deposits. This–” he gestured at a hexagonal lump of metal while Young tucked the penlight into a pocket “-will enable us to break through the mounds those beasts have created.”

Around the base of every tree was a rock solid mass of feces. They’d seen the birds feasting on the trees – cracking open fruit, pecking holes into the trunks and devouring sap thick enough to chew. It was Young’s private opinion that they were doing more than just eating the sap; he’d seen them vomiting onto the pillars they lived in, shoring up the weak spots and gradually making them taller.

He hadn’t caught the entirety of the explanation – the chatter of the birds had made his head spin – but whatever they needed was buried under pounds of solid bird waste, and getting past it was going to take a lot of work. They were waiting until the weather cooled to do the bulk of the work. In the meantime, there was foraging, and scouting, and Rush, frowning at small ancient machines that had seen better days.

There were a lot of things that were not okay. The flowering trees that hadn’t sprouted fruit gave off a very sweet, very _wet_ smell that made his nose itch. The smell was more potent in the fresh bird waste; clearing it away so they could reach the stone hard mass underneath had been nauseating work, and Young didn’t anticipate having to do it again.

But it was nice, this string of good luck they’d had. Plenty of food, and a few parties that he didn’t really attend, and liquor that he didn’t drink, and terrible under-sweetened tea that was still better than flat metallic water. And people were happy – his people were happy. Not as happy as they could be, but at the very least they weren’t afraid.

They had this stretch of time with six imperfect but acceptable planets, and they could relax, just a little. For Rush, who didn’t know the meaning of relaxation, that meant constantly finding something new to be upset about.

And maybe for Young….

He leant back on the ground and was greeted with an upside-down view of the thing that Rush couldn’t get to work. “You know, it’s not much of a rest period if you don’t actually _rest_.”  



End file.
